Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett have made an unlikely intergenerational splash with their jazz collaboration on Cheek to Cheek. The two will be appearing for two nights at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre as part of the Coastal Jazz festival.

Given that Gaga is 29 and Bennett turns 89 in August, we thought we'd give you a rundown of just how much has changed over their 60-year age difference.

MUSIC

Whether it's toting a massive icicle-shaped keytar or wearing dresses made with 3D print technology, Gaga has styled herself as a futuristic pop star. For her turn with Bennett, she has turned back the clock, praising his "subtlety."

"It's a lot harder to sing with auto-tune, in a way, you know?" she told reporter Jeff Lunden at NPR. "It's a lot harder to sing with rigid electronic music and lots of spectacle. It can be very difficult because it's not always extremely natural."

So what exactly has changed in music since 1955?

Back then, pop hits included softies such as Mr. Sandman by the Chordettes and The Ballad of Davy Crockett by Bill Hayes.

It wasn't until 1964 when Robert Moog released his modular synthesizer that electronic music began to make a mark on the world.

The Beatles and the Rolling Stones both bought one, but the Moog synthesizer's real breakthrough came from a composer and musician named Wendy (née Walter) Carlos whose Switched-On Bach changed classical music and inspired a generation. She went on to contribute to the unforgettable soundtracks of Clockwork Orange and The Shining. Then in 1974, Kraftwerk brought the Moog and their particular brand of musical futurism into pop music with Autobahn: although it was their fourth album, it was the band's first commercial success.

The iPod was nowhere in sight — digital recording didn't hit the market until the 1960s either — and the first all-digital album was Ry Cooder's moderately successful Bop till You Drop in 1979.

FASHION

Lady Gaga has been known for her flamboyant style, building on the mixture of art and cabaret laid down by the drag community and mainstreamed by Madonna in the 1980s. And no one will forget how she famously freaked out the world by wearing a dress made of meat to the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards.

For the stripped-down Cheek to Cheek tour, she has sampled early Liza Minnelli and mid-period Cher, but what was fashion like in 1955?

Perhaps the biggest coup in the fashion industry at the time was still the introduction of Christian Dior's new silhouette in 1947 with its tiny waist and wide A-line skirt.

But as with now, there were those women who were pushing hard at the boundaries.

When it came to being shocking, nobody did it better than actress Jayne Mansfield. A famous 1957 photo of the bombshell, just 24 at the time, shows a 22-year-old Sophia Loren giving Mansfield what appears to be the most epic side-eye in history. However, in a 2014 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Loren claimed she was simply scared that the extremely low-cut dress would cause Mansfield's cleavage to "spill all over the table."

Like Gaga herself, Mansfield was a genius at self-promotion and had no problem showing off her body to fulfil her ambitions, even if it meant the occasional wardrobe malfunction. But it didn't always serve her well — as she aged, audiences lost interest and her star was in descent by her untimely death in a car accident at the age of 34.

WOMEN

Lady Gaga may only admit to being a "little bit of a feminist" but it's certainly true that her life would have been wildly different if she'd been around 60 years ago.

Although the number of women working outside the home in the U.S. had jumped from about 8.5 million to almost 13 million between 1947 and 1956 (according to feminist.org), the reputation of women in the workforce was still very poor.

In a 1956 issue of Life Magazine dedicated to women, an article focusing on working mothers explicitly linked rises in ambition and independence in women to mental illness and homosexuality in children. So yeah, we've come a long way, baby.

It's worth noting that when Bennett married for the first time in 1952, legions of female fans crowded the cathedral dressed for mourning, but the move (and his ensuing dad-bod) did nothing to hamper his career.

EQUALITY

Lady Gaga has always been a vocal advocate for LGBTQ rights. Identifying herself as bisexual, she spoke out at the 2009 National Equality March and a 2010 rally advocating the repeal of the American military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

But what was it like to be gay 60 years ago?

In the 1950s, scholars had just begun to produce research showing that being gay was not a form of deviance. Sodomy was considered a felony across the United States and Canada, which meant jail time if you were caught.

It wouldn't be until the Stonewall Riots in 1969 that real legislative change began to take place and it would still be decades later before social change followed.

Back then, pop stars and performers who were rumoured to be gay had to go to great lengths to stay in the closet within the public eye, including going on dates organized by studio executives.

In a hugely publicized trial in 1959, Liberace sued columnist William Connor from the British tabloid the Daily Mirror for calling him a "fruit."

The pianist, who was known for his Gaga-esque showmanship, won a settlement of £8,000 (about £160,000 or $300,000 today).

Until his death from AIDS in 1987, Liberace continued to deny that he was gay, but in a 2011 CNN interview, his close friend actress Betty White publicly acknowledged the truth.

And forget about gay marriage: In 1955 more than half of U.S. states had laws against interracial marriage, which wouldn't be repealed until a Supreme Court decision in 1967.

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Tony Bennett to Lady Gaga: How things change in 60 years

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